Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, published in New York City in 1963, identified and named 'the problem that has no name' — the widespread dissatisfaction of educated American women trapped in domestic roles — and sold over three million copies in the first three years. Friedan's analysis included the role of consumer culture, including lingerie and bra advertising, in maintaining women's sense of themselves as primarily bodies to be clothed, ornamented, and presented for male approval. The book is widely credited with igniting second-wave feminism in the United States.

The Feminine Mystique created the cultural context in which feminist poets of the 1960s and 1970s could publish work explicitly addressing women's bodily and social confinement. Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, and Denise Levertov were all working poets whose careers were shaped by the new feminist consciousness Friedan helped create. The book's critique of the domestic ideal liberated women's poetry from the decorous femininity of the 'poetess' tradition.